After The Massacrehttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com
"There's no justice, there's just us, Blind justice, screwed all of us There's no justice, there's just us, We need justice for all of us" - Agnostic FrontSun, 13 Aug 2017 17:30:01 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/346aadc5081bfdd495812544dc5cf909?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngAfter The Massacrehttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com
Tears Of A Clownhttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/tears-of-a-clown/
https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/tears-of-a-clown/#respondSat, 15 Dec 2012 07:20:10 +0000http://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/?p=985Continue reading →]]>Another day, and another mass shooting has claimed the lives of many innocents; this time it was 20 children and six adults murdered by 20-year old Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

It’s one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history and it’s just one more in a history of mass killings by lone gunmen that – for whatever reason – decided to take their rage out on a group of people who didn’t deserve to be shot. Some, like the neo-Nazi killer Wade Michael Page, did so in the name of political ideology. But most others seem to have done it due to mental illness, as is the case of Lanza.

Nonetheless, it’s a national tragedy and many people are grieving as though they, too, lost a child in the attack … including Obama, who shed a tear in an unusual moment for a commander-in-chief while he delivered a statement:

“‘Our hearts are broken today for the parents and grandparents sisters and brothers of these children,’ Obama said of the victims. Of those who survived, he said, the parents ‘know that their children’s innocence has been torn away from them too early and there are no words that will ease their pain.’ At the end of his statement, Obama abruptly left the podium without taking questions.”

“Nonetheless, these strikes are illegal, unethical and a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty as well as the UN Charter. But U.S. warrior President Obama remains intransigent in continuing his secret war through drone attacks.”

By his command, these attacks killed over a hundred Pakistani children – more than were killed at the school – and left their parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers broken-hearted.

“Asia News recently reported how the misogynist crime of female genital mutilation (FGM) continues to be a ‘widespread traditional practice’ in ‘rural areas and more remote areas of Indonesia, particularly the island of Java.’ The story makes sure to remind us, naturally, that while this crime is being perpetrated in a Muslim country, the crime ‘is not a rule set in a rigid manner by the precepts of Islam.’ It is only widespread, we are consoled, because of the actions of ‘the more extreme and integral fringe.’

In her coverage of this news report, freedom fighterPamela Gellershrewdly asks the key question that somehow mysteriously eludes the minds of every breathing human being in our mainstream media: ‘The fringe made it widespread?’

Indeed, if only the ‘extreme and integral fringe’ supports this sadistic and vicious crime against women, and if it is ‘not a rule set in a rigid manner by the precepts of Islam,’ then where are all the Muslim imams, muftis and clerics in the world, and in Indonesia in particular, vociferously denouncing and repudiating this crime as un-Islamic and coming to the defense of Muslim women?“

If you’re going to call someone a “freedom fighter,” they should be actively fighting for freedom, no? Freedom is a word and like any word, it can mean whatever the user wants it to mean. A useful definition – one that I think everyone can agree on – is that freedom is the opposite of tyranny and its corollary – bigotry and oppression. So, with those key concepts in mind, a “freedom fighter” fights against tyranny, bigotry and oppression.

Is Pamela Geller a “freedom fighter” according to this definition? One way to determine her fitness as one who fights for freedom can be culled from her book “The Post-American Presidency.” As she put it:

“It may be an old cliche, but it’s true: show me your friends, and I’ll show you who and what you are.”

But it gets better; Yerushalmi – an Orthodox Jew – also wrote this piece called “Jew Hatred?“:

“The Jews it seems are the bane of Western society.I will ignore the Leftist version of the Jewish problem… But the Jewish problem for conservatives is a different and quite interesting affair. It is most interesting because so much of what drives it is true and accurate. Now the high-brow among these men and women insist that they don’t hate Jews or wish them ill so in that sense the contempt is disguised much like that from the Left. The conservative variety simply professes to uncover the many and varied ways Jews destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite, especially when the host is a Western nation-state.“

Which leaves one last question – what kind of person would endorse someone with such repugnant views and associations as a “freedom fighter?” Someone that sums up his and his fellow right-wing travelers mission with this:

“As I have documented in United in Hate: The Left’s Romance With Tyranny and Terror, the Left cannot reach its hand out in compassion and solidarity to the suffering people under Islam, or under any other tyranny. Doing so would be an admission of the evil of an adversary culture and ideology, which, in turn, casts a spotlight on the superiority and goodness of Western civilization, and therefore serves as a reminder of the importance of protecting and saving it.”

By Western civilization, he means white people. Female Genital Mutilation is more about contrasting inferiority with superiority than it is about helping women. Despite the reality of FGM’s facilitating women’s oppression, what’s clear is that once again, these “freedom fighters” are exploiting this issue to promote a racist and anti-democratic agenda.

]]>https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/the-thinking-alike-of-great-minds/feed/0afterthemassacreMemo To Israel: Be Careful What You Wish Forhttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/memo-to-israel-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/
https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/memo-to-israel-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/#respondTue, 11 Dec 2012 03:13:03 +0000http://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/?p=965Continue reading →]]>Khaled Meshal – exiled leader of Hamas – made a triumphant return to his native Gaza strip for the first time in 45 years and gave an uncompromising speech where the Islamist group will continue to fight Israel. Meshal became famous in 1997 when Israel tried assassinating him with poison in Jordan, only to be forced to hand over an antidote when the Hashemite Kingdom protested.

Meshal’s visit marked the 25th anniversary of the group’s founding, which occurred with the start of the first intifada. In the aftermath of the eight-day Israeli assault that left over 160 Palestinians and six Israelis dead, many analysts agreed that Hamas emerged stronger than ever as the face of resistance in the eyes of Palestinians – especially when the alternative Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority relies on American/EU financial assistance and is seen as a corrupt partner of the West/Israel that prefers a negotiated settlement that will never happen.

That’s what the media reported.

Here’s what the media failed, with few exceptions, to report: that 25 years ago Israel worked with then newly established Hamas to undermine the secular nationalist Fatah-dominated Palestine Liberation Organization during the uprising. It’s a policy that goes back to the origins of the Islamic Association – Hamas’ predecessor founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1979.

“Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.

Israel ‘aided Hamas directly — the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),’ said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

Israel’s support for Hamas ‘was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,‘ said a former senior CIA official.”

Despite these reports, the American mainstream media haven’t bothered to report this past relationship; no doubt as part of its pro-Israel bias that even goes beyond Israeli media. Compare the coverage of the 2004 Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin between the Associated Press and the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.

“1948: Yassin family uprooted in creation of the state of Israel. Yassin growsup in Gaza refugee camps. At age 12 is paralyzed in sporting accident. He laterraises 11 children in three-room apartment in Gaza City slum.

“1948 – the Yassin family becomes refugees. Yassin grows up in Gaza refugee camps. At age 12 he is paralyzed in sporting accident. He later raises 11 children in three-room apartment in Gaza City slum.

1965 – the Egyptian intelligence service arrests Yassin for Muslim Brotherhood activities. He is held for a month.

1979 – Islamic Association, headed by Yassin, is recognized by the IDF as a counterweight to Fatah. Yassin gets medical treatment in Israel.

1984 – Yassin is sentenced to 13 years in prison for weapons possession, establishment of an armed organization and calling for Israel’s destruction.”

]]>https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/memo-to-israel-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/feed/0afterthemassacreRobert Spencer: Warrior Of Truthhttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/robert-spencer-warrior-of-truth/
https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/robert-spencer-warrior-of-truth/#respondFri, 30 Nov 2012 05:19:49 +0000http://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/?p=946Continue reading →]]>Robert Spencer is a bestselling author of anti-Muslim books and articles that supposedly shine a light on the Islamic threat to Western civilization. He has even given lectures on this subject “for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.”

Therefore, he should be able to do the research to back up his assertions. But as I show below, he makes claims that can be easily dispelled with a cursory internet search.

“While the hopelessly compromised American Library Association cravenly capitulates to the foes of free speech, at least one library in Tehran is more hospitable to free thought and a genuine exchange of ideas.

Last Monday evening I spoke at the University of California Irvine, at an event organized by an Iranian ex-Muslim who read my book Islam Unveiled after finding it in a library in Tehran. A printout of some of the listings from that library is above; you can see my books Islam Unveiled and Onward Muslim Soldiers, along with other Islamorealistic books.

When I asked my host how my books could have possibly gotten there, he told me that there were millions of Islamoskeptics and secret apostates in Iran, and they could have gotten the books into the library system there. He also told me that he and other apostates felt quite isolated and threatened in Iran (understandably so) and drew hope from Jihad Watch and other freedom sites, seeing from them that they were not alone.

So while the American Library Association marches on in politically correct lockstep, not daring to entertain any genuine dissent even as they celebrate ‘Banned Books Week,’ the truth is more welcome — quietly, cautiously, but unmistakably — in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The “truth” is relative – what Spencer offers in his work is an opinion and a disturbing one at that; an analysis of his work found parallels between his anti-Muslimism and the antisemitism of the infamous Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher. Even more disturbing is his association with European neofascists as part of the so-called “counter-jihad” movement.

But if what he claims about the ALA is true, then American libraries wouldn’t have any of his books, right? After all, a group that “cravenly capitulates” to the right-wing bogeyman – known as “political correctness,” or what normal people call tolerance and respect for others – would make sure libraries are Spencer-free. That’s what he’s implying by comparing the ALA with a library in the heart of Islamo-fascist Iran.

So I did a Google search to find out.

I began with a search of libraries close to home, where I found that the Farmington and Bloomfield Township branches have some of his books in stock. The public libraries in Metro Detroit’s Islamic hubs Dearborn and Hamtramck also have some of his books.

Branching out, I searched the databases in the liberal hotbeds of San Francisco and New York, both of which have his books on their shelves. Searches of other major metropolitan libraries like Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles produced the same results.

And last but not least, I searched the UC Irvine’s library database – the university where he delivered his lecture – and lo and behold, there it was: Spencer’s books available to be checked out.

In other words, he’s wrong about the state of free speech in America; an error that’s a recurringpattern throughout his work. Either he didn’t bother to do the work – which took me all of five minutes to do – or – more likely – he knew his books are available in American libraries, but omitted it knowing that his readers won’t bother to do the research, either.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today (Wednesday, 14 November 2012), made the following statement:

“Citizens of Israel,

I want to praise the IDF soldiers and commanders, led by Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz , who is commanding the operation as we speak. I want to note the Israel Security Agency, headed by Director Yoram Cohen, for their vital part in the operational accomplishments that we have already achieved. I thank the citizens of Israel for their unwavering support of this operation. I thank the residents of southern Israel who are at the front, and exhibit strength and restraint.

Hamas and the terror organizations decided to escalate their attacks on the citizens of Israel over the last few days. We will not accept a situation in which Israeli citizens are threatened by the terror of rockets. No country would accept this, Israel will not accept it.

Today, we hit Hamas strategic targets precisely. We have significantly debilitated their ability to launch rockets from Gaza to the center of Israel, and we are now working to disable their ability to launch rockets towards the south. The terrorist organizations – Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others – are deliberately harming our citizens, while intentionally hiding behind their citizens. On the other hand, we avoid harming civilians as much as possible and that is one fundamental difference between us. It also indicates the big difference between our objectives, and not only in our methods. They want to obliterate us from the face of the earth and they have no qualms about hurting civilians and innocents.

Today, we sent an unequivocal message to Hamas and the other terror organizations, and if need be the IDF is prepared to expand the operation. We will continue to do everything necessary to defend our citizens.”

Could Spencer be talking about media outlets like that bastion of liberalism, the New York Times? As one of the largest and most read newspapers in the world, it would certainly fall under his category of “international media.” So what did the paper that has all the news that’s fit to print have to say about Israel’s Gaza attack?

“No country should have to endure the rocket attacks that Israel has endured from militants in Gaza, most recently over the past four days. The question is how to stop them permanently.”

Sounds like something Spencer would agree with. The difference, of course, lies in the question of how to stop them permanently:

“Israel has a right to defend itself, but it’s hard to see how Wednesday’s operation could be the most effective way of advancing its long-term interests.It has provoked new waves of condemnation against Israel in Arab countries, including Egypt, whose cooperation is needed to enforce the 1979 peace treaty and support stability in Sinai.”

In other words, while Spencer wholeheartedly agrees with Netanyahu’s mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians, the Times is critical of the ongoing operation’s effectiveness. Both, however accept Tel Aviv’s narrative that it had no choice but to defend itself against Palestinian “terrorism.”

Again, the Times:

“Hamas has controlled Gaza since Israel withdrew in 2007. The group has mostly adhered to an informal cease-fire with Israel after the war there in the winter of 2008-09. But, in recent months, Hamas has claimed responsibility for participating in rocket firings, and last week it took credit for detonating a tunnel packed with explosives along the Israel-Gaza border while Israeli soldiers were working nearby.”

In other words, Israel has done nothing to provoke this crisis – it’s only defending itself. That’s the Times take on Israel’s onslaught, which is consistent with its long-standing pro-Israel editorial line. In its news section – which is supposed to be “objective” – we see the same bias in favor of the Israeli narrative:

“Israel had already been facing growing tensions with its Arab neighbors. Israel has confronted lawlessness on its border with Sinai, including cross-border attacks. It recently fired twice into Syria, which is caught in a civil war, after munitions fell in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and it has absorbed more than 750 rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel this year. The rockets have hit homes, caused injuries and frightened the population. On Saturday, Gaza militants fired an antitank missile at an Israeli Army Jeep patrolling the Israel-Gaza border, injuring four soldiers.”

Not to be outdone, the Washington Post regurgitated this propaganda line in its own Orwellian-tinged editorial, “Heading off full-blown war in the Gaza strip”:

“THE IMMEDIATE cause of the exploding conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip was a series of attacks by Palestinian militants, including a missile fired at a jeep carrying Israeli soldiers inside Israel, and a rain of rockets against Israeli towns — more than 180 in the course of a few days. Israel could not but respond, and when it did, it chose to deliver a strategic blow: the assassination of Hamas’s military commander, Ahmed Jabari, and airstrikes against scores of sites where the Palestinians had stored a large arsenal of rockets and missiles, including Iranian-built models capable of hitting central Israel.”

And the Los Angeles Times said pretty much the same thing its editorial, “Middle East peace takes a beating,”:

“Israel unquestionably has the right to defend itself against rockets fired by militants in Gaza. No nation is obliged to suffer such attacks without responding.And this year, according to Israeli Foreign Ministry officials, there have been twice as many rocket attacks as last year.”

So much for the media aiding and abetting Israel’s enemies. These editorials demonstrate that major American media outlets essentially have internalized the Israeli narrative and only criticize the Jewish state when its actions aren’t deemed to be in its best interests.

But that’s only part of the problem. The other is the narrative itself, which presents Israel as a victim frequently under attack by its antisemitic neighbors for being Jewish and that all of its actions are purely self-defense. It’s a narrative that exploits the long history of persecution of Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. Israel is merely confronting the new Nazis in the form of Palestinian and Islamist terrorists who wish to eliminate it simply because they’re Jews.

There’s only one problem with this narrative – it’s not true. And nothing demonstrates its falseness quite like the current conflict.

The current crisis began last Thursday when Israeli troops were fired on after they made an incursion into Gaza. The IDF moved into ‘Abassan village, east of Khan Yunis with three bulldozers and began to fire indiscriminately after coming under fire; a 13-year old child was killed. The obvious question is what the hell were Israeli forces and bulldozers crossing the border when a state of war currently exists between the two sides and the 2008-09 war – which was more like a massacre – is still a recent memory. The Israeli explanation is that “they were performing routine activity adjacent to the security fence,” which sounds more like a provocation designed to give the PM an edge in the upcoming January election.

This is what the Israelis have actually done and it’s what both Spencer and the media defend, giving them more in common than either one will probably ever know. But as much as Robert Spencer sucks, at least he doesn’t pretend to be objective – he’s taken a side, albeit the dark side. And being less well-known and relevant, his views have less impact on public consciousness and understanding than the media.

Spencer’s assertion about the media being anti-Israel and supporting its enemies is irrational, but that’s what lies at the heart of Islamophobia – irrationality. That irrationality is in line with Israel’s absurd inversion of reality, but it’s the media’s job to untangle that web and bring clarity – in theory. The reality is that it’s role is to act as a propaganda outlet for the ruling class under the guise of “objectivity,” a fact that’s been known for some time. The fact is there’s no such thing as objectivity, so there’s a choice to be made – either you’re on the side of the oppressor or on the side of the oppressed. Robert Spencer and the media already made their choice.

]]>https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/rocket-man/feed/2afterthemassacreFuck The Vote. Riot.https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/fuck-the-vote-riot/
https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/fuck-the-vote-riot/#respondTue, 13 Nov 2012 09:35:42 +0000http://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/?p=882Continue reading →]]>Here’s how I felt about the election that just went down:

Fuck the vote. Riot.

Here’s one reason why – Obama’s Veterans Day speech where he played up the fact that the United States is no longer occupying Iraq:

“This is the first Veterans Day in a decade in which there are no American troops fighting and dying in Iraq. (Applause.)Thirty-three thousand of our troops have now returned from Afghanistan, and the transition there is underway. After a decade of war, our heroes are coming home. And over the next few years, more than a million service members will transition back to civilian life. They’ll take off their uniforms and take on a new and lasting role. They will be veterans.”

Which means they’ll probably be handicapped, or worse – have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and trouble adjusting to civilian life – like those who have committed suicide in large numbers.

So when he declared that no more American troops were fighting and dying in Iraq, it appears he’s been consistent all along, right?

Wrong. If Obama had his way, we would still have American troops in Iraq.

The reason for the military withdrawal at the end of 2011 was due to a deal negotiated and agreed by the Bush administration called the Status Of Forces Agreement, or SOFA. The Obama administration was so sure Iraqi leaders would agree to the U.S. staying longer that Leon Panetta assumed they did, only to be contradicted by the Iraqi Foreign Minister:

“Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Iraq’s government has agreed to extend the U.S. military presence in the country beyond 2011 — but Iraq quickly rejected the claim.

The word from Panetta, during an interview with Stars & Stripes, was the first official indication that any of the 46,000 American troops will remain in Iraq beyond the country’s Dec. 31 deadline for U.S. forces to leave. The U.S. and Iraq reached a security agreement in 2008 that the entire American military would be out of the country by the end of 2011.

‘My view is that they finally did say, ‘Yes,’’ Panetta told the military’s official newspaper. He told the paper he urged the Iraqis six weeks ago to ‘damn it, make a decision’ about allowing U.S. troops to remain in the country into 2012.

But shortly after Panetta’s interview hit the Internet, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told Agence-France Presse that no deal is in place.

‘We have not yet agreed on the issue of keeping training forces,’ spokesman Ali Mussawi said. ‘The negotiations are ongoing, and these negotiations have not been finalized.’

Panetta said the Pentagon has already begun planning for the continued presence in Iraq.”

“The Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Iraq expires at the end of the year. Officials had been discussing the possibility of maintaining several thousand U.S. troops to train Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqis wanted troops to stay but would not give them immunity, a key demand of the administration.

‘This deal was cut by the Bush administration, the agreement was always that at end of the year we would leave, but the Iraqis wanted additional troops to stay,’ an administration official said. ‘We said here are the conditions, including immunities. But the Iraqis because of a variety of reasons wanted the troops and didn’t want to give immunity.'”

“President Obama’s speech formally declaring that the last 43,000 U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year was designed to mask an unpleasant truth: The troops aren’t being withdrawn because the U.S. wants them out. They’re leaving because the Iraqi government refused to let them stay.”

That’s why there are no American troops fighting and dying in Iraq today. If there was an anti-occupation movement outside of the system and in the streets instead of a bunch of “progressives” worrying over whether the people they elect will actually live up to their promises this time – then there wouldn’t be any Americans fighting and dying anywhere in the first place.

]]>https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/fuck-the-vote-riot/feed/0afterthemassacreMoronic Ironyhttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/moronic-irony/
https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/moronic-irony/#commentsThu, 04 Oct 2012 10:07:38 +0000http://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/?p=855Continue reading →]]>Robert Spencer is an anti-Muslim far right bigot that has – among other things – collaborated with European neofascists. He’s a New York Times best-selling author; appears regularly on Fox News; and has taken part in counter terrorism training for various government agencies.

“Doubling the first offer. Given Obama’s repeated denunciations of the film and the fact that the filmmaker is currently under arrest, maybe he will hand him over to the Pakistanis.”

Was he kidding? Maybe – but given the broad context of making absurd claims about Islam around which he’s based his career, he shouldn’t be too surprised that someone like me would take his alleged “irony” seriously – especially since he’s known not as a satirist or humorist, but as an ignorant anti-Muslim reactionary peddling lies; or what Daniel Pipes calls “a serious scholar.”

Or this post about the Egyptian government charging seven Egyptian-Americans with blasphemy:

“Will Obama hand them over?”

Then there’s this over-the-top “analysis” of Obama’s biblical invocation during last year’s 10th anniversary of 9/11:

“Obama reads Psalm 46, including verse 8: ‘Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has wrought desolations in the earth.’

The only people who think that 9/11 was an act of the Supreme Being wreaking desolations on the earth are…Islamic jihadists.

So why did Barack Obama pick this psalm out of 150 psalms, and out of innumerable appropriate Biblical passages, to read at the 9/11 ceremonies? 9/11, after all, was a day when there were indeed wrought desolations on the earth. Did Obama really mean to say that God did it, that it was an act of divine judgment, rather than a monstrous and unmitigated evil?

Or is this just another one of those funny coincidences, of which there are so very, very many when it comes to Barack Obama and his remarkable, unqualified and obvious affinity for Islam?”

So given this entire context, it’s reasonable to assume that he meant what he said as a serious observation; and I made this the subject of a tweet on my Twitter account. The conversation we had went like this – after making my initial tweet, he responded:

“Clearly you are very, very seriously irony challenged.”

To which I retorted:

“Or you are very, very seriously reality challenged. Either way, you can eat a dick.”

After that, he retweeted my response and I get a tweet from this jackass:

“Can’t tell humor /satire from serious? THATs another reason why we can’t have ‘offensive’ speech banned in the USA.”

Even if Spencer is really satirizing Obama, he’s satirizing a reality that doesn’t exist. This reality is actually a series of projections based on an inverted world of powerful Islamic forces aiming to conquer a vulnerable West led by dhimmis personified in Obama.

Take the first post – that Obama is an appeaser of radical Islam and against free speech. That flies in the face of his speech to the UN where he actually defended the freedom to blaspheme on the same day a report detailed the effects from the massive death toll in Pakistan from the increased use of drone strikes from the previous administration.

This is the reality of the last four years that Spencer whitewashed to conform with his ideology of racism and dehumanization of Muslims. Just consider this post:

“Barack Obama and General John Allen should be prosecuted for the deaths of every one of the fifty troops murdered by their Afghan ‘allies’ this year. They are all victims of the politically correct unwillingness to accept unpleasant realities about Islam: that it teaches hatred of and warfare against unbelievers, the virtue of deceit in war, and the impermissibility of cooperating with or allying with infidels on a permanent and lasting basis.”

But Bush shouldn’t be prosecuted for invading the country and setting up the occupation that Obama continued?

Such rational thinking is irrelevant to Spencer, however, because he’s an eliminationist and his work is dedicated to presenting a picture where eliminationism is the only logical solution in the face of Islamic savagery.

The truth is that Obama is a neocolonial overseer of the American empire, dedicated to the same objectives as all previous administrations – a truth Spencer and people like him have dedicated to convincing others that it doesn’t exist. Spencer’s bigotry does exist, however, both in his serious work and in his “irony.”

So the question, therefore, isn’t whether he was serious or not … it doesn’t matter. What matters more is that Spencer and his agenda must be defeated.

]]>https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/moronic-irony/feed/2afterthemassacreBetween Paranoia And A Hard Placehttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/between-paranoia-and-a-hard-place/
https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/between-paranoia-and-a-hard-place/#respondWed, 19 Sep 2012 19:06:09 +0000http://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/?p=840Continue reading →]]>Iranian nuclear chief Fereydun Abbasi-Davani declared that “”terrorists and saboteurs might have intruded the agency and might be making decisions covertly” in reference to an incident on Aug. 17 when power lines to the underground enrichment facility at Fordo were cut the day before a surprise inspection was sought by the International Atomic Energy Agency:

“‘Does this visit have any connection to that detonation? Who other than the IAEA inspectors can have access to the complex in such a short time?’

‘It should be recalled that power cut-off is one of the ways to break down centrifuge machines,’ he added, referring to the equipment used to increase the proportion of fissile uranium-235 atoms within uranium.”

The IAEA dodged his charge – a move which probably appeared suspicious to Tehran – while Abbas-Davani’s accusation was dismissed as dishonest:

“Western diplomats privately dismissed the Iranian allegations against the IAEA as an attempt to divert attention from Tehran’s stonewalling of the agency’s inquiry.

‘Iran’s accusations against the IAEA are a new low. Increasingly cornered, they are lashing out wildly,’ said nuclear proliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank.”

It’s possible Abbasi-Davani’s remarks reflect the Islamic Republic’s irritation with the IAEA’s increasingly critical stance against Iran’s nuclear program. Just three days ago, the board of the UN watchdog issued a resolution condemning the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program – a resolution that included Tehran’s traditional backers Russia and China.

Or, he could be relying on precedent.

That precedent possibly was the use of the United Nations Special Commission, or Unscom by the CIA as a cover for intelligence gathering on sites in Iraq while looking for the weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. The Guardian reported in 1999:

“American espionage in Iraq, under cover of United Nations weapons inspections, went far beyond the search for banned arms and was carried out without the knowledge of the UN leadership, it was reported yesterday.

An investigation by the Washington Post found that CIA engineers working as UN technicians installed antennae in equipment belonging to the UN Special Commission (Unscom) to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military. When British intelligence asked what was going on, the operation was denied, the report said.

US government officials refused to comment on the report yesterday.

In response to newspaper allegations of espionage in January, the US conceded that it had deployed eavesdropping equipment in an operation codenamed Shake the Tree, but insisted that it was done at the invitation of Unscom with the sole aim of foiling Saddam Hussein’s attempts to conceal weapons of mass destruction.

But according to yesterday’s report, quoting unnamed US sources, the “remote monitoring system” Unscom used to relay video pictures of suspected weapons sites to inspectors in Baghdad was secretly used to intercept communications between Iraqi commanders and military units.

Richard Butler, the Australian diplomat who runs Unscom, was reportedly kept in the dark about the CIA operation, as was his predecessor, Rolf Ekeus.

But the Washington Post quoted “sources in Washington” as saying that the CIA notified Charles Duelfer, a US official who served as deputy to both Mr Ekeus and Mr Butler, to ensure that Unscom inspectors in Iraq did not interfere with the operation.”

The Islamic Republic is well-known for its paranoia and using conspiracy theories to avoid its own political short-comings , most especially when dealing with internal uprisings that it tried blaming solely on outside interference. But given the numerous assassinations of nuclear scientists, terrorist operations emanating from U.S. soil, or threats of a U.S./Israeli attack, one cannot simply dismiss his remarks as simulated paranoia for diplomatic gain when they have their neighbor’s experiences under similar circumstances to consider.

“Mr Abbasi was himself wounded when a motorcyclist attached a bomb to his car in Tehran in November 2010, on the same day as another scientist was killed by this method.”

]]>https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/between-paranoia-and-a-hard-place/feed/0afterthemassacreFight The Real Enemyhttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/fight-the-real-enemy/
https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/fight-the-real-enemy/#respondTue, 18 Sep 2012 06:04:26 +0000http://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/?p=830Continue reading →]]>It would be refreshing to see Muslim mobs protest and riot at U.S. embassies over drone strikes that claim the lives of many innocent Muslim civilians.

Then – as now – Muslims were up in arms over a series of cartoons while far worse things were going on, like the occupation of Iraq, for example. There’s no comparison: on the one hand, the occupation already claimed at least “24,865 civilians were reported killed in the first two years,” (months before the cartoons were published) of which “US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims” and “air strikes caused most (64%) of the explosives deaths,” according to research conducted by Iraq Body Count between March 2003 and March 2005.

On the other hand, cartoons. Yeah.

This isn’t to say that Muslims weren’t pissed off at the illegal and immoral invasion; Muslims joined anti-war protests that occurred across the world when the coalition of the willing crossed into Iraq. But the flames of popular outrage and militancy was channeled and confined to Al-Qaeda and sectarian terrorism, and an anti-occupation movement was as absent there as it was in the West … which leads to the obvious question – why do Muslims become more outraged over symbolic affronts to Islam than real-world trampling of the lives and dignity of Muslims?

The answer lies in Islamism, bolstered by conservative societies. The protests have largely been organized by Islamist groups in order to increase their presence and gain political strength. In Egypt, for example:

“Hours before the Benghazi attack, hundreds of mainly ultraconservative Islamist protesters in Egypt marched to the U.S. Embassy in downtown Cairo, gathering outside its walls and chanting against the movie and the U.S. Most of the embassy staff had left the compound earlier because of warnings of the upcoming demonstration.

‘Say it, don’t fear: Their ambassador must leave,’ the crowd chanted.

Dozens of protesters then scaled the embassy walls, and several went into the courtyard and took down the American flag from a pole. They brought it back to the crowd outside, which tried to burn it, but failing that tore it apart.

The protesters on the wall then raised on the flagpole a black flag with a Muslim declaration of faith, “There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet.” The flag, similar to the banner used by al-Qaida, is commonly used by ultraconservatives around the region.

The crowd grew throughout the evening with thousands standing outside the embassy. Dozens of riot police lined up along the embassy walls but did not stop protesters as they continued to climb and stand on the wall – though it appeared no more went into the compound.

The crowd chanted, ‘Islamic, Islamic. The right of our prophet will not die.’ Some shouted, ‘We are all Osama,’ referring to al-Qaida leader bin Laden. Young men, some in masks, sprayed graffiti on the walls. Some grumbled that Islamist President Mohammed Morsi had not spoken out about the movie.”
Here’s what happened in Tunisia, the site of the Arab Spring’s first uprising :

“Several thousand people battled with Tunisian security forces outside the U.S. Embassy in Tunis. Protesters rained stones on police firing tear gas and shooting into the air. Some protesters scaled the embassy wall and stood on top of it, planting the Islamist flag that has become a symbol of the wave of protests: A black banner with the Islamic profession of faith, ‘There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.'”

“Some 350 activists from Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, a student wing of the hardline Sunni party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), staged a separate demonstration, blocking a main road by setting fire to tyres and burning a US flag, an AFP reporter said.”

“Hundreds converged Thursday on the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which is heavily barricaded because of past al-Qaida-linked attacks on the compound. Yemeni guards at checkpoints on roads leading up to the compound did nothing to stop the crowd, said Ahmed Darwish, a witness who was at the scene.

The crowd swarmed over embassy’s entrance gate. Men with iron bars smashed the thick, bullet-proof glass windows of the entrance building while others clambered up the wall. Some ripped the embassy’s sign off the outer wall.

“Inside the compound grounds, they brought down the American flag in the courtyard and replaced it with a black banner bearing Islam’s declaration of faith — ‘There is no God but Allah.’ They did not enter the main building housing the embassy’s offices, some distance away from the entry reception. Demonstrators set tires ablaze and pelted the compound with rocks.”
In many cases, such as in Algeria, Islamists have demanded that the U.S. circumvent the Constitution and ban the film, which no one even knew about until Islamists got aggro.Such a stance seemingly gives credibility to anti-Muslim activists

The film’s bigoted anti-Muslim stance is apparent for all to see, as it connects the actions of Islamists – in Egypt, in this instance – portraying the Prophet Muhammad as a murderer, tyrant, over sexed, child molester and a homosexual. It’s a way of presenting Islamism an inevitable and honest expression with broader Islam, a conflation justifying bigotry and colonialism by removing any moral counterweight to such objectionable concepts – a key premise underlying right-wing anti-Muslim activism. A full expose of these right-wing forces behind the film’s production and distribution reveals the intent of fomenting trouble by inciting Muslims to promote a Christian supremacist and pro-Israel agenda.

But the secret to their success lies in large part in the actions of Muslims; success that Islamists seem willing to enable as part of an unspoken alliance. Anti-Muslim propaganda and prejudice will always be there in one form or another, so the real question is how is it to be defeated – a question Islamism cannot answer because it’s part of the problem given life on 9/11/01 and renewed on 9/11/12.

What the film’s producers/distributors and the Islamist mobs have in common with each other is a commitment to a reactionary and theocratic agenda. This commonality means that no movement against the kind of Islamophobia promoted in the film has any chance of success unless it also includes an opposition to Islamism as well; one can’t exist without the other, and they can only be defeated by a progressive secularist movement and not by idiot mobs.

Update: 9/21/12

In order to counter anti-Muslim perceptions of irrationality that have filtered through the internet – and hence the collective consciousness – two pieces appeared on liberal left sites that sought to shed light on why Muslims were really angry. Unfortunately, the authors fall short of doing what they set out to do.

“Broad hints can be seen in the Washington Post’s coverage over recent days – including a long piece by its Editorial Board, ‘Washington’s role amid the Mideast struggle for power,’ published the same day Ajami’s article appeared online.

What the two have in common is that the word ‘Israel’ appears in neither piece. One wonders how and why the Post‘s editors could craft a long editorial on the “Mideast struggle for power” — and give editorial prominence to Ajami’s article — without mentioning Israel.

Presumably because the Post’s readers aren’t supposed to associate the fury on the Arab ‘street’ with anger felt by the vast majority Arabs over what they see as U.S. favoritism toward Israel and neglect for the plight of the Palestinians. The Israeli elephant, with the antipathy and resentment its policies engender, simply cannot be allowed into the discussion.”

Jeff Sparrow reached back into British colonial history to understand the riots today:

“In 1857, Bengali soldiers (known as ‘sepoys’) shot their British officers and marched upon Delhi. The Great Indian Rebellion became very violent, very quickly. The rebels massacred prisoners, including women and children; the British put down the revolt with a slaughter of unprecedented proportions.

Now, that rebellion began when the troops learned that their cartridges, designed to be torn open with their teeth, would be greased with beef and pork fat, an offence to the religious sensibilities of Hindus and Muslims alike. Had Twitter been an invention of the Victorian era, London sophisticates would, no doubt, have LOLed to each other (#sepoyrage!) about the credulity of dusky savages so worked up about a little beef tallow. Certainly, that was how the mouthpieces of the East India Company spun events: in impeccably Dawkinesque terms, they blamed ‘Hindoo prejudice’ for the descent of otherwise perfectly contented natives into rapine and slaughter.

But no serious historian today takes such apologetics seriously. Only the most determined ignoramus would discuss 1857 in isolation from the broader context of British occupation. In form, the struggle might have been religious; in content, it embodied a long-simmering opposition to colonial rule.”

There’s some truth in these assertions, but it’s not the whole truth. The U.S. has been bankrolling Israeli apartheid for decades, yet it wasn’t the latest outrage from Netanyahu that sparked the protests; likewise, American neocolonialism laid the ground work for the riots and violence, but the British insensitivity that sparked the Sepoy Rebellion can’t be compared to the film trailer because it was a governmental action – unlike the film, which was produced by an obscure Islamophobe and convicted felon unconnected with Washington.

Now, if the film was produced by the U.S. military and distributed in Afghanistan – followed by rioting in Kabul – then the Sepoy comparison would hold. But that obviously didn’t happen; instead the world saw Islamist mobs expending considerable energy and anger over the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, instead of more pressing concerns like the death of Adnan Latif. Attacking racism and colonialism as the underlying cause of these riots is understandable, but ignoring the Islamist elephant in the room not only distorts analysis of anti-Muslim bigotry, it cedes territory to the Islamophobes and guarantees them legitimacy – which ultimately defeats the purpose of defeating them.

]]>https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/fight-the-real-enemy/feed/0afterthemassacreThese Are The Signs Of The Timeshttps://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/these-are-the-signs-of-the-times/
https://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/these-are-the-signs-of-the-times/#respondSun, 08 Jul 2012 03:31:05 +0000http://afterthemassacre.wordpress.com/?p=815Continue reading →]]>The New York Times reported that 10 years after the brutal sectarian pogrom in Gujarat, there’s a ray of hope that the victims will get justice:

“India was once the world’s wellspring of religiously inspired massacres. As such violence rages across the Middle East, the bougainvillea sprouting from Gujarat’s charred buildings offers hope that even societies steeped in blood can curb the self-perpetuating logic behind such clashes.”

But is there hope that the truth about the cause of those riots can be effectively conveyed by the Times? Not likely:

“The riots began on Feb. 27, 2002, when a train filled with Hindu pilgrims who had just visited a disputed shrine rolled into Godhra, a small city in eastern Gujarat, and was attacked by a Muslim mob. A fire started, and at least 58 Hindu pilgrims burned to death. Their charred bodies were brought to Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city, and laid out in public, an act that all but guaranteed more violence. Huge mobs gathered to view the bodies.”

So the carnage began when Muslims attacked a trainload of innocent Hindu pilgrims … because they were Hindu, right? It’s precisely the same narrative used by Hindu fundamentalists to whip up the frenzy that killed nearly a thousand people. The Times isn’t a fundamentalist newspaper that shares the goals of Hindu supremacy – so why would it parrot that movement’s worldview?

It’s a rhetorical question – the Times, as a corporate media outlet that essentially shares the goals of American neocolonialism and as such distorts the news in its favor and otherwise gets things wrong, as I’ve noted elsewhere on this blog.

But apart from that bias in favor of the empire, this distortion is a curious one – in that it ignores a key cause of the pogrom and reinforces the false paradigm of “evil Muslims versus the rest of the world” that’s the domain of the anti-Muslim far right. Most likely it was done in the name of “objectivity” – that tradition in American journalism that seeks to detach the coverage of events from any sort of bias, yet at best, the more a paper runs from any sort of bias, the more it can end up reinforcing it – as the Times piece demonstrated.

What the article left out was the exact identity of the “pilgrims” that were on the train. They were a varied group, but included among them were Kar Sevaks, or Hindu devotees. It’s a broad term, but it’s generally synonymous with Hindu fundamentalism and sectarianism, and are associated with the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya Dec. 1992 which sparked sectarian riots that claimed 2,000 lives – a fact the mob that greeted the pilgrims were no doubt aware. In addition, Kar Sevaks on the train were engaged in provocations, as Dr. Muqtedar Khan noted on his blog:

“The karsevaks, who happened to be very unsavory characters, were indulging in atrocious behavior on the train. They were exposing themselves to women, harassing Muslim women and robbing petty shopkeepers all along the journey. Their reputation preceded them to Godhra and there when they refused to pay for the snacks they consumed they were attacked by Muslim youth and the altercation ended in the gruesome burning of the train in which innocent women and children were also brunt to death.”

This doesn’t the passengers – especially the children – deserved to die. Whoever set the train on fire are scum and deserved to be punished. But to characterize it as a “mob” versus “pilgrims” distorts the context in which this tragedy occurred. What happened on that train platform wasn’t good versus evil, but two variations of evil, the latter of which is Hindu supremacy, or Hindutva; the ideology the Kar Sevaks and the pogromists had in common.

This supremacist ideology was on display during an observance of the pogrom’s 10th anniversary:

“The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Monday paid tributes to kar sevaks killed in the Godhra carnage on the 10th anniversary of the incident. Announcing that VHP will start public movement against Jehadi terror, VHP’s international general secretary Pravin Togadia called upon all the Hindus for social and economic boycott of the jihadis as part of his campaign called “HinduSthan against Terror’. Togadia also implored people to recognise politicians who are hungry for Muslim votes and teach them a lesson.”

Yes, ignore Muslim votes – that would be democratic. Nowhere was there any expression of remorse for the Muslims that died or for inciting Hindus to attack innocent Muslims – because they’re all jihadis. It’s the same ideologically structured sense of “victim-hood” that was the driving force behind the pogrom is also the core component of Hindutva supremacist ideology – which the Times promoted, albeit unwittingly.